Rare Pfaltzgraff jug sells for $8K at York County auction

JACKSON TOWNSHIP — An antique Pfaltzgraff pottery jug likely used to hold moonshine sold for $8,500 at the Thomasville Country Auction Monday night, the auctioneer said.

The jug, which is decorated blue with a picture of a man drinking out of a jug, dates between 1850 and 1870 and includes the inscribed words “local option,” according to Sheryl Hooks, owner and auctioneer.

It was likely used to hold alcohol, and is probably one of a kind, she said.

“Back in those days, they didn’t make mass production stuff like this,” Hooks said. “It’s mint condition, with no cracks or breaks.”

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Hooks said five bidders participated in the auction before the item was sold to a man from Hanover.

“We were well pleased,” she said. “What’s nice is the consignor had no idea of the value of it.”

The jug, made in York, came from the home of a retired dentist in York County who recently downsized to move into a retirement home, Hooks said. Auction staff noticed the jug when they went to pick up other items, she said.

“He had it sitting in the basement on a cement floor,” she said.

The Pfaltzgraff Co. had been the oldest continuously operating pottery manufacturing company in the United States. Johann George Pfaltzgraff, a German immigrant, started the one-man pottery firm in 1811.

In his 50 years at Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff, Louis J. Appell Jr. grew the pottery business and the media division. The company was one of the largest privately owned broadcasters in the country.

In 2005, the pottery division’s intellectual property and retail stores sold for $38.2 million to New York-based Lifetime Brands.

By 2009, the brand’s remaining outlet stores were closed, along with a York County distribution center.